


This Time

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, King of Hell Sam Winchester and Consort Dean Winchester, M/M, Pregnant Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Reference to Past Miscarriage, Reference to past grief, Reference to past still birth, Scared Dean Winchester, Vengeful Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-19 16:11:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19136137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: They’re too far from Hell to make it back when Dean’s waters break.Given how Dean’s past pregnancies ended, having him give birth in the back seat of the Implala is beyond dangerous but there are no other options.It’s down to Sam, now.





	This Time

**Author's Note:**

> Please, if reference to still birth and past miscarriages will upset you, don’t read any further.
> 
> If you need some reassurance before continuing, this time it will be okay.

There’s a flash of light, and then the last of the angels are gone, and Sam can feel his power unfurling, spreading through him like a burn, and he-

-feels Dean’s hand on his shoulder, fingers gently stroking the back of his neck, grounding him, pulling him back.

“Hey. Hey, Sammy, come on. It’s okay.”

He turns to Dean (no, not on him, no) but Dean doesn’t flinch. To anybody else it’d look like he was staring calmly at the King of Hell, leader of demonic legions, capable of shaking the fucking _earth_. But Dean is staring calmly at his brother, and he waits until Sam has the darker part of him tucked securely away.

“I knew they’d be stubborn,” he says, “but…”

Dean lets Sam help him back to the car. “They wanted to talk to Cas. Maybe...maybe we should have let him come.”

Sam looks at his brother like he’s out of his damn mind. “They don’t want to talk to Cas, they just _want_ him. That’s why I made him stay home.”

“He’s probably gonna be pissed at that, you know it.”

Sam sighs. All this time, and it still takes more power than Sam has access to, even now, to convince Cas he is worthy of being kept safe, of being cared for and protected.

“I’ll make it up to him.”

“They wouldn’t have gotten hold of him,” Dean says, as he fumbles a little with the seat belt, and Sam ends up gently swatting his hands away, and fastens it carefully over Dean’s bump for him. “I’m not even sure they would have dared to try.”

Sam feels otherwise. The newly established hierarchy in Heaven seems to be comprised of people unworthy to lead but either too arrogant or power hungry to realise it.

It’s not a good dynamic, and Sam’s pretty certain they would still have tried to snatch Cas away from them, from his family.

Apparently, all angels belong in Heaven, and there certainly should not be one living in Hell with the King and his brother.

But Sam knows Cas had two reasons for wanting to come to this meet, and neither were for the purpose of seeing his _former_ family again.

One, he wanted to make sure the angels didn’t try anything (he knows Sam’s more powerful than him, but he’s still their guardian angel, always will be).

And, two, he knows Dean’s near his time, and with what’s happened before, he wanted to be close.

Sam wouldn’t even have brought Dean out here, except there’s a certain way these things have to be done, and if the King has a consort then, being heavily pregnant with twins or not, he has to be a party to any negotiations conducted.

It’s still a two hour drive back to the nearest portal into Hell. If Dean wasn’t pregnant, Sam would teleport them there, but he isn’t risking that, not now.

“It’ll be okay,” Dean says again, maybe ten minutes into the drive.

Sam nods, absently.

Then Dean reaches over, and rubs Sam’s knuckles. “Unless you wrench the wheel off my car, Sam, and then you’re sleeping on the couch.”

Sam laughs, the first time in what feels like ages, and eases up his touch a little. “Sorry.”

Dean doesn’t move his hand, and Sam needs that, needs to feel Dean’s there with him.

He has cause to be glad of it for another reason, shortly after, because Dean’s hand suddenly tightens over his, and his brother gasps.

Sam glances at him. “Dean?”

When Dean looks back, his face says it all.

“My waters broke.”

Sam pulls in. Out here, there’s a fair chance of somebody passing them, seeing them, so he puts a glamour, a barrier around the car that will stop anyone noticing them, anyone coming near.

No one will know why they’re compelled to avoid this small bubble he’s created, but they will all the same.

“Sam, Sam, we need to get back,” Dean pants.

“We won’t make it,”. Sam says. Even with him driving as fast he as he can, he knows that once Dean’s started, the babies will follow soon.

It has to be here.

He gets out, and helps Dean stretch out on the back seat, but his brother’s fighting him, trying to sit up as Sam strips him down.

“Not here, Sam, fuck, please. Cas, Rowena, they’re not here…. I need.”

Sam kisses him, hard, desperate, pushing into it that he will do his best to keep Dean safe, to make this okay.

“We won’t make it back,” he says. And he could go, he could teleport to Hell, and bring Cas and Rowena to him, but that means leaving Dean alone, and…

He can’t.

The first head is already crowning, and Dean’s panting like he’s being torn in two.

“I can’t go through it again,” he says. “Sam, I can’t, I can’t.”

There’s nothing Sam can say. For all his power, he can’t give Dean any guarantees here.

This will be their fourth attempt, and Sam knows if what happened before happens again, it’ll be their last. They, neither of them, have it in them, but it’s Dean who bears the worst of it, who spends months carrying a life, nurturing it inside him, only for it to later be snatched away from him.

Maybe, Sam wonders, this is Karma. For all the times they tried to do good, and ended up doing worse.

If so, she’s a cruel fucking bitch and Sam has her on his list.

And then Dean yells out, and he’s pushing, and Sam grabs up Dean’s discarded shirt, because it’s all he has.

It still takes Dean another twenty minutes to deliver the first of their twins, and the tiny form squelches out of him, covered in blood and fluid, and Sam hastily scoops his finger in the baby’s mouth, clearing out the airway, and turns him, him, they have a boy, please let it be true, and spanks him.

The baby jerks, and then wails his displeasure. 

Dean seems to stop breathing.

“Hey, hey,” Sam says, and reaches up to cup Dean’s face. “Come on, take a breath, it’s okay, he’s fine.”

He can’t believe he’s saying it himself, but it’s true. The baby’s alive, and…

Dean grunts and almost bends double, and then Sam realises he could use another pair of hands.

It’s not ideal, but he levitates the boy while he strips off his own shirt to catch his sibling.

This one’s harder, and that fear, present, but settled a little by the cries of their newborn, rears up again. Dean’s crying as he pushes, bearing down so hard the strain turns his face red, and then Sam’s fear isn’t just for the other twin.

And then the second boy is there, too, and Sam does as he did for the first, and waits, waits…

The baby gurgles, and blinks up at his dad, before opening his mouth and letting out such a wail that Sam’s not sure his glamour will stop it being heard.

He looks at Dean and Dean’s gaze is vacant, like he’s just waking up or just falling asleep.

Sam hands him both babies, nestles them against him.

“Dean, it’s okay. They’re okay.”

Still, his brother won’t speak. He stares down at the children, tucked against his chest, and Sam knows it might be a while before he can get through to Dean.

He uses his powers to act as a barrier come seatbelt, and gets back behind the wheel.

It’s only as they start back on to the road, that Sam realises the babies were born in the same place they were conceived.

And it’s only just after that, he realises he’s crying too.

++

It’s two days after the birth that Sam realises taking Dean to the meeting with Heaven is why they have two babies, and not another heartbreak.

Every other time Dean lost the life he was carrying, it was in Hell.

Where he should have been safe.

And yet, he wasn’t.

Now, thanks to Rowena and Cas, he knows why. 

The four demons chained into kneeling positions before him must know this is not going to end well for them.

If Sam has a mind to, it won’t end at all. He rises from the throne, stares down at the creatures who visited miscarriages and still births upon his brother, who probably laughed and congratulated themselves while Dean’s heart broke again and again.

Killing them…. Too quick, too easy. Sam wants them skinned alive, he wants them whipped to the bone, he wants their screams to echo through the halls so that everybody knows the price of hurting the people he loves.

And if he had time, he’d do it himself.

But he has a brother and two infants to care for, even with the help of the angel and the witch in the family.

So, for now, Sam delegates.

After all, a scream is a scream.


End file.
